This invention relates to mutagenicity assay methods.
Several laboratory tests currently in use measure mutagenicity. The object of most such tests is to determine, indirectly, whether a substance is a human carcinogen; the underlying theory is that a mutagen is likely also to be a carcinogen.
Some tests employ in vitro methods (Rabin et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,816,263; Loeb et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,072,574) while others, such as the widely-used Ames test, are in vivo assays. The Ames test, described in Ames et al. (1975), Mutation Research 31, 347 and Ames et al. (1973), Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 70, 2281, involves exposing auxotrophic bacteria to a suspected carcinogen and scoring revertants to wild-type.
According to another in vivo mutagenicity assay, described in Thilly U.S. Pat. No. 4,066,510, cultured human lymphoblasts, rather than bacteria, are exposed to a suspected mutagen and then scored for mutations.